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Ostrich leather

Example of the leather grain on ostrich leather

Ostriches do not hide their heads in the sand. Sorry folks, but
that's the truth. So where did this idea come from? The ostrich
can be found feeding in the desert plains and when they feed, they have
to bend their heads down almost touching the ground. Now when you look
at an ostrich from very far, it looks like it has buried its head in the
ground.

The leather of the ostrich has a beautiful grain. The grain of course
is where the feathers grow, called quill marks. This makes the leather
very desirable.

Stuff to Know

Animal:

Ostrich (Struthio camelus)

Maximum size & weight:

The height an ostrich can grow is 2.5 meters
high (8 feet).

The maximum
weight of the Ostrich is 450 lbs (204 kg). This is in Holzmeister
Ostrich Ranch, Oakley, Kansas, USA.

Maximum age:

Ostriches can grow up to 40 years

Protected?

Ostriches are not protected.

Where it lives in the wild

The ostrich can be found native to the African savannas,
but after 19th century, ostrich farming became popular due to the demand
for ostrich feathers.

Where is it farmed?

Ostriches will thrive in temperatures between
30° and -10°, that is why they are found in over 50
countries.

The Feather Capital of the World is in Durban, South Africa, having
the largest concentration of ostrich farms in the world.

Dangerous to humans?

Oh Yes!. A kick can kill. Ask Johnny Cash,
the famous American singer.

Afraid of humans?

No, but are always curious and like to peck at bright
shiny objects. They walk up to you for a closer look, and then, suddenly
peck at your eyes. Well, they are shiny looking for the ostrich.

People injured yearly

An instance recorded by the British Journal of Opthalmology
about a case of injury from an ostrich. It has noted
that a farmer had his eyes pecked, the right eye being seriously damaged
(medical terms like proptosis, ultrasound examination, tomography scan,
etc). The effect of the damage was mentioned as "total loss of vision
to no light perception." In short, the farmer was blinded in his right
eye because of the ostrich. It goes on to say, most people consider
incidents like this as uncommon, incidental or even humurous and leads
to why there is lack of detailed information.

It's a long way of saying, "Sorry folks, no data available."

People killed yearly
by

Johnny Cash (famous American singer) released
an autobiography and mentioned an incident that he was nearly gutted
out by an ostrich kick (Cash: The Autobiography {Mass Market Paperback}).

People, it's very real that one can get killed by an ostrich. We just
don't have the information because as mentioned above, incidents
like this are either uncommon or incidental.

Is meat edible?

Yes. They have a "cherry red" color, so
are classifed as red meat but without the cholesterol and fat compared
to beef. I'll have mine medium well-done, please.

Oh and eggs, too. The ostrich egg is
the largest egg. When hatched, it weighs about 1 kilogram! Imagine
a dish of scrambled egg made from it!

Taste of meat

Like beef, low in cholesterol

Living habits:

When in the wild, they usually live in nomadic herds
of 5–50, slowly roaming plains going from one pasture to the other,
or just avoiding predators. A herd will have one dominant male that will
mate with the dominant female, then all the females in the herd.
The females will lay their fertilized eggs in
a single communal nest, a simple pit scraped in the ground and about 30–60 cm
deep. Ostrich eggs can weigh 1.3 kg and are the largest of all eggs, though they
are actually the smallest relative to the size of the bird. The nest may contain
15–60 eggs. The eggs are incubated by the females by day and by the male by night,
making use of the different colors of the two sexes to escape detection. The
young hatch after some 35–45 days. Typically, the male will tend to the hatchlings.

Eating habits:

They mainly feed on seeds and other plant matter;
occasionally they also eat animal matter such as locusts.
An interesting fact about their digestion is that they lack teeth.
Because of this, they swallow pebbles so that helps them to grind the
swallowed foods in the gizzard (a very muscular stomach).
They can go without water for a long time, exclusively living off the
moisture in the ingested plants. However, they like water and frequently
take baths.

One other thing about the pebbles. They become smooth as the result
of all that grinding inside the gizzard.

Farming style:

Ostrich start breeding at 2 to 5 years old. Eggs are laid early spring
to autumn, weighing between 1 to 2kg. They are collected daily from
the nests and incubated for 42 days at 35 to 36.5°C. Chicks weigh
about 1kg at hatch.

Breeders can be run in pairs, trios (1 male to 2 females) or colonies
of up to 40 birds, with a minimum of 1 rooster to 5 hens.

Breeders must be fed a breeder feed to get optimum performance.

Chicks can be reared completely indoors to 8 weeks, or outdoors with
heated sheds. Newly hatched chicks need to be kept at 28 to 30°C
and fed 3 to 4 times a day for the first week, with a minimum of 20°C
at night for the next 3 weeks. Chick rearing is labour or capital intensive.

Young chicks are fed on specialised pellets/meal containing all the
essential amino acids, protein, energy, and trace elements they need.

Harversting weight
and size:

Ostrich are slaughtered at 9 to 14 months
at about 100kg live weight and 45kg-carcass weight to produce about
28kg of high quality meat. Skin and feathers are by products of the
meat.

Skin processing:

The skin is fleshed and then soaked in
water to remove dirt, blood, salt and
other excess fats. The animal hide is fleshed; the flesh is removed
from the surface of the hide.

Then the hairs are removed by soaking the hide in a lime solution.
This loosens the hair from the skin. Then the hide is scudded;
removing of the hairs by using a dull knife.

Then the lime is removed
(deliming), ready for tanning.

The tanning process is a chemical process. The skin is treated in
either vegetable solution (tanin) or in mineral solution (chrome, for
example). The treatement, depending on the desire product. Vegetable
taning will produce stiff leathers and mineral taning will produce
soft leathers.

Leather durability:

It is the strongest type of leather.

Leather softness:

Flexible (supple), yet tough.

Other Leather features:

Distinctive quill pattern and suppleness
makes it unique, due to the feather growth on the skin surface.